Social media has become a crucial piece of any solid Internet Marketing campaign. It’s not really how good your company looks on paper - it’s how you look online, and how you appear on social media. Because, like it or not, most people nowadays rely on social media to make purchase decisions - around 74% in fact! For many, it can be a frustrating experience. This is mainly because of the ever-changing landscape of not only platform types, but also the ways in which users are interacting with existing platforms. As a full-service Seattle internet marketing company, we’ve witnessed countless struggles with the social media juggernaut. The good news is that Social media management is pretty straight forward - and the potential gains are incredibly viable - as long as you’ve got a solid strategy and the right tools in place.

Hone In On A Cross-Platform Strategy

As you probably already know, just being on social media networks doesn’t result in automatic engagement. You’ll need to put a specific plan in place.

First Ask yourself:

Who is my core audience?

What channels are most conducive to that audience’s interests?

How do I want to appear to members of my audience (potential customers)?

What do I hope to gain? What is my specific goal with Social media?

Based on my goal, what specific Call to Action can I provide my users?

With this information, you should have an idea of which platforms might serve you best. Then, try to explore the individual communities within each through user interests, hashtags, or lists. Undoubtedly, there will be conversations surrounding your industry. What content gets a lot of shares? What influencers have the biggest following? What are they talking about? This will help you hone in on who your customer base is, what issues you should focus on in your social media marketing strategy, and how you should interact with your base.

2. Build Out a Content Calendar and Stick to It

Certainly, there are some similar functions behind social media channels; however, there is often little commonality between peak times and the type of engagement required for effective reach.

It’s all about knowing what works for each platform -three tweets per day can work well for gaining Twitter Momentum, for example. Moreover, marketing the same content across multiple platforms is okay, but each accompanying update should be unique. With so many moving pieces, organization becomes really important here. Organize your posts by platform, and schedule them by day, week, and month.

Try using content calendar templates to plan and record what content you’re marketing, and when you’re marketing it.

3. Integrate Your Social Strategy With Your SEO Strategy, With Your PPC Strategy, and So On.

Bonsai has earned a reputation as one of the top Seattle internet marketing firms. Why? Because we do it all, and we’ve witnessed the different ways that the most viable internet marketing channels have become increasingly intertwined in recent years.

With any images that you use, complete the title, alternative title and metadata with keywords.

Use share buttons that can generate customized social media shares with your company website, name and applicable hashtags.

4. Utilize If This Then That (IFFT)

IFTTT is a free service that will allow you to initiate actions based on specific triggers. It’s remarkably easy to use, and incredibly effective. So much so that the top social platforms have started authoring Applets for their users. The way it works is you set up a trigger, and every time that trigger goes off, IFTTT will initiate an action based on your preferences.

For example, every time I post an image to instagram with specific hashtag, that image will then post on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever I told it to, with the same caption, just as if I had logged into that platform and posted it directly there.

These conditional chains are called “applets” and once you set them up, and give them permission to use your profile, they occur automatically. Obviously, this can be an immense help in your social media marketing strategy when you have several pieces of content that you need to post across multiple platforms throughout the day.

But the functions of IFTTT are much more extensive than cross posting. It can integrate with your android phone, or your Iphone’s IOS and track your location to turn your WIFI on and and off as you leave or return home, for example. With the right chain of Applets in hand, you could command an entire social media marketing campaign right from your phone. How well are you utilizing this free service, if at all?

5. Utilize a Social Media Management Tool

These days, when you’re managing multiple platforms, or multiple platforms for multiple different clients, the only way to to succeed is with a swiss army knife like CMS in hand. The good news is that there are a few tools out there which will most assuredly get the job done.

A great solutions for posting, monitoring, and interacting with users on any social platform. We use Hootsuite because it allows you to use the profile just as you would if you were logged into it. Plus there’s built analytics, bulk scheduling, built in RSS feeds for auto reposting, and a ton more. You can beat it

We also have experience with Buffer, another of the most used Social CMS options. Buffer’s main benefit is that it allows you to see which posts are performing well at a glance, and judge those posts using various metrics. Unfortunately, it is somewhat limited in what it allows you to do within your social profile.

These types of tools will allow you to manage almost if not all of your social networks via one dashboard. Tracking progress is absolutely essential to the health of your campaign, and it can be hard to quantify progress on your own without solid analytics in place, which these platforms come stocked with. These systems can accommodate multiple users and even help you delegate tasks to employees, giving you an unprecedented amount of control over your social media strategy..

In addition to taking on social media, we also handle web development, SEO, PPC, and branding and design. We take a data driven approach in everything that we do and we know how to leverage various marketing channels to drive the results that matter.

Bonsai Media Group is a clan of designers, developers, and marketing ninjas. We stealthily navigate complex codes, design strategy, and search engine algorithms to provide clients with a web site that kicks ass, gets noticed, and drives business.